The Wealth of Nations (1776) - An Excerpt from Chapter 8 of Vol. 1------------------------------------------------------------------by Adam Smith-------------

What are the common wages of labour, depends everywhere upon the contractusually made between those two parties, whose interests are by no means thesame. The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little aspossible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latterin order to lower the wages of labour.

It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, uponall ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force theother into a compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number,can combine much more easily; and the law, besides, authorizes, or at leastdoes not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen.We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work;but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes the masters canhold out much longer. A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, a merchant,though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year ortwo upon the stocks which they have already acquired. Many workmen could notsubsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year withoutemployment. In the long run the workman may be as necessary to his master ashis master is to him; but the necessity is not so immediate.

We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, thoughfrequently of those of workmen. BUT WHOEVER IMAGINES, UPON THIS ACCOUNT, THATMASTERS RARELY COMBINE, IS AS IGNORANT OF THE WORLD AS OF THE SUBJECT. MASTERSARE ALWAYS AND EVERYWHERE IN A SORT OF TACIT, BUT CONSTANT AND UNIFORMCOMBINATION, NOT TO RAISE THE WAGES OF LABOUR ABOVE THEIR ACTUAL RATE. TOVIOLATE THIS COMBINATION IS EVERYWHERE A MOST UNPOPULAR ACTION, AND A SORT OFREPROACH TO A MASTER AMONG HIS NEIGHBOURS AND EQUALS. WE SELDOM, INDEED, HEAROF THIS COMBINATION, BECAUSE IT IS THE USUAL, AND ONE MAY SAY, THE NATURALSTATE OF THINGS, WHICH NOBODY EVER HEARS OF. Masters, too, sometimes enterinto particular combinations to sink the wages of labour even below this rate.These are always conducted with the utmost silence and secrecy, till themoment of execution, and when the workmen yield, as they sometimes do, withoutresistance, though severely felt by them, they are never heard of by otherpeople. Such combinations, however, are frequently resisted by a contrarydefensive combination of the workmen; who sometimes too, without anyprovocation of this kind, combine of their own accord to raise the price oftheir labour. Their usual pretences are, sometimes the high price ofprovisions; sometimes the great profit which their masters make by their work.But whether their combinations be offensive or defensive, they are alwaysabundantly heard of. In order to bring the point to a speedy decision, theyhave always recourse to the loudest clamour, and sometimes to the mostshocking violence and outrage. They are desperate, and act with the follyand extravagance of desperate men, who must either starve, or frighten theirmasters into an immediate compliance with their demands. The masters uponthese occasions are just as clamorous upon the other side, and never ceaseto call aloud for the assistance of the civil magistrate, and the rigorousexecution of those laws which have been enacted with so much severity againstthe combinations of servants, labourers, and journeymen. The workmen,accordingly, very seldom derive any advantage from the violence of thosetumultuous combinations, which, partly from the interposition of the civilmagistrate, partly from the necessity superior steadiness of the masters,partly from the necessity which the greater part of the workmen are under ofsubmitting for the sake of present subsistence, generally end in nothing, butthe punishment or ruin of the ringleaders.

Is it necessary to repeat here the irrefutable arguments of Socialism which nobourgeois economist has yet succeeded in disproving? What is property, whatis capital in their present form? For the capitalist and the property ownerthey mean the power and the right, guaranteed by the State, to live withoutworking. And since neither property nor capital produces anything when notfertilized by labor - that means the power and the right to live by exploitingthe work of someone else, the right to exploit the work of those who possessneither property nor capital and who thus are forced to sell their productivepower to the lucky owners of both. Note that I have left out of accountaltogether the following question: In what way did property and capital everfall into the hands of their present owners? This is a question which, whenenvisaged from the points of view of history, logic, and justice, cannot beanswered in any other way but one which would serve as an indictment againstthe present owners. I shall therefore confine myself here to the statementthat property owners and capitalists, inasmuch as they live not by their ownproductive labor but by getting land rent, house rent, interest upon theircapital, or by speculation on land, buildings, and capital, or by thecommercial and industrial exploitation of the manual labor of the proletariat,all live at the expense of the proletariat. (Speculation and exploitation nodoubt also constitute a sort of labor, but altogether non-productive labor.)

I know only too well that this mode of life is highly esteemed in allcivilized countries, that it is expressly and tenderly protected by all theStates, and that the States, religions, and all the juridical laws, bothcriminal and civil, and all the political governments, monarchies andrepublican - with their immense judicial and police apparatuses and theirstanding armies - have no other mission but to consecrate and protect suchpractices. In the presence of these powerful and respectable authorities Icannot even permit myself to ask whether this mode of life is legitimate fromthe point of view of human justice, liberty, human equality, and fraternity.I simply ask myself: Under such conditions, are fraternity and equalitypossible between the exploiter and the exploited, are justice and freedompossible for the exploited?

Let us even suppose, as it is being maintained by the bourgeois economistsand with them all the lawyers, all the worshippers and believers in thejuridical right, all the priests of the civil and criminal code - let ussuppose that this economic relationship between the exploiter and theexploited is altogether legitimate, that it is the inevitable consequence,the product of an eternal, indestructible social law, yet still it willalways be true that exploitation precludes brotherhood and equality. Itgoes without saying that it precludes economic equality. Suppose I am yourworker and you are my employer. If I offer my labor at the lowest price, if Iconsent to have you live off my labor, it is certainly not because of devotionor brotherly love for you. And no bourgeois economist would dare to say that itwas, however idyllic and naive their reasoning becomes when they begin to speakabout reciprocal affections and mutual relations which should exist betweenemployers and employees. No, I do it because my family and I would starve todeath if I did not work for an employer. Thus I am forced to sell you my laborat the lowest possible price, and I am forced to do it by the threat of hunger.

But - the economists tell us - the property owners, the capitalists, theemployers, are likewise forced to seek out and purchase the labor of theproletariat. Yes, it is true, they are forced to do it, but not in the samemeasure. Had there been equality between those who offer their labor andthose who purchase it, between the necessity of selling one's labor and thenecessity of buying it, the slavery and misery of the proletariat would notexist. But then there would be neither capitalists, nor property owners, northe proletariat, nor rich, nor poor: there would only be workers. It isprecisely because such equality does not exist that we have and are bound tohave exploiters.

This equality does not exist because in modern society where wealth isproduced by the intervention of capital paying wages to labor, the growthof the population outstrips the growth of production, which results in thesupply of labor necessarily surpassing the demand and leading to a relativesinking of the level of wages. Production thus constituted, monopolized,exploited by bourgeois capital, is pushed on the one hand by the mutualcompetition of the capitalists to concentrate evermore in the hands of anever diminishing number of powerful capitalists, or in the hands ofjoint-stock companies which, owing to the merging of their capital, aremore powerful than the biggest isolated capitalists. (And the small andmedium-sized capitalists, not being able to produce at the same price as thebig capitalists, naturally succumb in the deadly struggle.) On the otherhand, all enterprises are forced by the same competition to sell theirproducts at the lowest possible price. It [capitalist monopoly] can attainthis two-fold result only by forcing out an ever-growing number of small ormedium-sized capitalists, speculators, merchants, or industrialists, fromthe world of exploiters into the world of the exploited proletariat, and atthe same time squeezing out ever greater savings from the wages of the sameproletariat.

On the other hand, the mass of the proletariat, growing as a result of thegeneral increase of the population - which, as we know, not even povertycan stop effectively - and through the increasing proletarianization of thepetty-bourgeoisie, ex-owners, capitalists, merchants, and industrialists -growing, as I have said, at a much more rapid rate than the productivecapacities of an economy that is exploited by bourgeois capital - thisgrowing mass of the proletariat is placed in a condition wherein the workersare forced into disastrous competition against one another.

For since they possess no other means of existence but their own manuallabor, they are driven, by the fear of seeing themselves replaced by others,to sell it at the lowest price. This tendency of the workers, or rather thenecessity to which they are condemned by their own poverty, combined withthe tendency of the employers to sell the products of their workers, andconsequently buy their labor, at the lowest price, constantly reproducesand consolidates the poverty of the proletariat. Since he finds himself ina state of poverty, the worker is compelled to sell his labor for almostnothing, and because he sells that product for almost nothing, he sinks intoever greater poverty.

Yes, greater misery, indeed! For in this galley-slave labor the productiveforce of the workers, abused, ruthlessly exploited, excessively wasted andunderfed, is rapidly used up. And once used up, what can be its value onthe market, of what worth is this sole commodity which he possesses and uponthe daily sale of which he depends for a livelihood? Nothing! And then? Thennothing is left for the worker but to die.

What, in a given country, is the lowest possible wage? It is the price of thatwhich is considered by the proletarians of that country as absolutelynecessary to keep oneself alive. All the bourgeois economists are in agreementon this point. Turgot, who saw fit to call himself the `virtuous minister' ofLouis XVI, and really was an honest man, said:

"The simple worker who owns nothing more than his hands, has nothing else tosell than his labor. He sells it more or less expensively; but its pricewhether high or low, does not depend on him alone: it depends on an agreementwith whoever will pay for his labor. The employer pays as little as possible;when given the choice between a great number of workers, the employer prefersthe one who works cheap. The workers are, then, forced to lower their price incompetition each against the other. In all types of labor, it necessarilyfollows that the salary of the worker is limited to what is necessary forsurvival." (Reflexions sur la formation et la distribution des richesses)

J.B. Say, the true father of bourgeois economists in France also said: "Wagesare much higher when more demand exists for labor and less if offered, and arelowered accordingly when more labor is offered and less demanded. It is therelation between supply and demand which regulates the price of thismerchandise called the workers' labor, as are regulated all other publicservices. When wages rise a little higher than the price necessary for theworkers' families to maintain themselves, their children multiply and a largersupply soon develops in proportion with the greater demand. When, on thecontrary, the demand for workers is less than the quantity of people offeringto work, their gains decline back to the price necessary for the class tomaintain itself at the same number. The families more burdened with childrendisappear; from them forward the supply of labor declines, and with less laborbeing offered, the price rises... In such a way it is difficult for the wagesof the laborer to rise above or fall below the price necessary to maintain theclass (the workers, the proletariat) in the number required." (Cours completd' economie politique)

After citing Turgot and J.B. Say, Proudhon cries: "The price, as compared tothe value (in real social economy) is something essentially mobile,consequently, essentially variable, and that in its variations, it is notregulated more than by the concurrence, concurrence, let us not forget, thatas Turgot and Say agree, has the necessary effect not to give to wages to theworker more than enough to barely prevent death by starvation, and maintainthe class in the numbers needed."1

The current price of primary necessities constitutes the prevailing constantlevel above which workers' wages can never rise for a very long time, butbeneath which they drop very often, which constantly results in inanition,sickness, and death, until a sufficient number of workers disappear toequalize again the supply of and demand for labor. What the economists callequalized supply and demand does not constitute real equality between thosewho offer their labor for sale and those who purchase it. Suppose that I, amanufacturer, need a hundred workers and that exactly a hundred workerspresent themselves in the market - only one hundred, for if more came, thesupply would exceed demand, resulting in lowered wages. But since only onehundred appear, and since I, the manufacturer, need only that number - neithermore nor less - it would seem at first that complete equality was established;that supply and demand being equal in number, they should likewise be equal inother respects. Does it follow that the workers can demand from me a wage andconditions of work assuring them of a truly free, dignified, and humanexistence? Not at all! If I grant them those conditions and those wages, I,the capitalist, shall not gain thereby any more than they will. But then,why should I have to plague myself and become ruined by offering them theprofits of my capital? If I want to work myself as workers do, I will investmy capital somewhere else, wherever I can get the highest interest, and willoffer my labor for sale to some capitalist just as my workers do.

If, profiting by the powerful initiative afforded me by my capital, I askthose hundred workers to fertilize that capital with their labor, it is notbecause of my sympathy for their sufferings, nor because of a spirit ofjustice, nor because of love for humanity. The capitalists are by no meansphilanthropists; they would be ruined if they practiced philanthropy. It isbecause I hope to draw from the labor of the workers sufficient profit to beable to live comfortably, even richly, while at the same time increasing mycapital - and all that without having to work myself. Of course I shall worktoo, but my work will be of an altogether different kind and I will beremunerated at a much higher rate than the workers. It will not be the work ofproduction but that of administration and exploitation.

But isn't administrative work also productive work? No doubt it is, forlacking a good and an intelligent administration, manual labor will notproduce anything or it will produce very little and very badly. But from thepoint of view of justice and the needs of production itself, it is not at allnecessary that this work should be monopolized in my hands, nor, above all,that I should be compensated at a rate so much higher than manual labor. Theco-operative associations already have proven that workers are quite capableof administering industrial enterprises, that it can be done by workerselected from their midst and who receive the same wage. Therefore if Iconcentrate in my hands the administrative power, it is not because theinterests of production demand it, but in order to serve my own ends, the endsof exploitation. As the absolute boss of my establishment I get for my laborten or twenty times more than my workers get for theirs, and this is truedespite the fact that my labor is incomparably less painful than theirs.

But the capitalist, the business owner, runs risks, they say, while the workerrisks nothing. This is not true, because when seen from his side, all thedisadvantages are on the part of the worker. The business owner can conducthis affairs poorly, he can be wiped out in a bad deal, or be a victim of acommercial crisis, or by an unforeseen catastrophe; in a word he can ruinhimself. This is true. But does ruin mean from the bourgeois point of view tobe reduced to the same level of misery as those who die of hunger, or to beforced among the ranks of the common laborers? This so rarely happens, that wemight as well say never. Afterwards it is rare that the capitalist does notretain something, despite the appearance of ruin. Nowadays all bankruptciesare more or less fraudulent. But if absolutely nothing is saved, there arealways family ties, and social relations, who, with help from the businessskills learned which they pass to their children, permit them to getpositions for themselves and their children in the higher ranks of labor, inmanagement; to be a state functionary, to be an executive in a commercial orindustrial business, to end up, although dependent, with an income superiorto what they paid their former workers.

The risks of the worker are infinitely greater. After all, if theestablishment in which he is employed goes bankrupt, he must go several daysand sometimes several weeks without work, and for him it is more than ruin,it is death; because he eats everyday what he earns. The savings of workersare fairy tales invented by bourgeois economists to lull their weak sentimentof justice, the remorse that is awakened by chance in the bosom of theirclass. This ridiculous and hateful myth will never soothe the anguish of theworker. He knows the expense of satisfying the daily needs of his largefamily. If he had savings, he would not send his poor children, from the ageof six, to wither away, to grow weak, to be murdered physically and morallyin the factories, where they are forced to work night and day, a working dayof twelve and fourteen hours.

If it happens sometimes that the worker makes a small savings, it is quicklyconsumed by the inevitable periods of unemployment which often cruellyinterrupt his work, as well as by the unforeseen accidents and illnesses whichbefall his family. The accidents and illnesses that can overtake himconstitute a risk that makes all the risks of the employer nothing incomparison: because for the worker debilitating illness can destroy hisproductive ability, his labor power. Over all, prolonged illness is the mostterrible bankruptcy, a bankruptcy that means for him and his children, hungerand death.

I know full well that under these conditions that if I were a capitalist, whoneeds a hundred workers to fertilize my capital, that on employing theseworkers, all the advantages are for me, all the disadvantages for them. Ipropose nothing more nor less than to exploit them, and if you wish me to besincere about it, and promise to guard me well, I will tell them:

"Look, my children, I have some capital which by itself cannot produceanything, because a dead thing cannot produce anything. I have nothingproductive without labor. As it goes, I cannot benefit from consuming itunproductively, since having consumed it, I would be left with nothing. Butthanks to the social and political institutions which rule over us and areall in my favor, in the existing economy my capital is supposed to be aproducer as well: it earns me interest. From whom this interest must be taken- and it must be from someone, since in reality by itself it producesabsolutely nothing - this does not concern you. It is enough for you to knowthat it renders interest. Alone this interest is insufficient to cover myexpenses. I am not an ordinary man as you. I cannot be, nor do I want to be,content with little. I want to live, to inhabit a beautiful house, to eat anddrink well, to ride in a carriage, to maintain a good appearance, in short,to have all the good things in life. I also want to give a good education tomy children, to make them into gentlemen, and send them away to study, andafterwards, having become much more educated than you, they can dominate youone day as I dominate you today. And as education alone is not enough, I wantto give them a grand inheritance, so that divided between them they will beleft almost as rich as I. Consequently, besides all the good things in lifeI want to give myself, I also want to increase my capital. How will I achievethis goal? Armed with this capital I propose to exploit you, and I proposethat you permit me to exploit you. You will work and I will collect andappropriate and sell for my own behalf the product of your labor, withoutgiving you more than a portion which is absolutely necessary to keep you fromdying of hunger today, so that at the end of tomorrow you will still work forme in the same conditions; and when you have been exhausted, I will throw youout, and replace you with others. Know it well, I will pay you a salary assmall, and impose on you a working day as long, working conditions as severe,as despotic, as harsh as possible; not from wickedness - not from a motive ofhatred towards you, nor an intent to do you harm - but from the love of wealthand to get rich quick; because the less I pay you and the more you work, themore I will gain."

This is what is said implicitly by every capitalist, every industrialist,every business owner, every employer who demands the labor power of the workersthey hire.

But since supply and demand are equal, why do the workers accept the conditionslaid down by the employer? If the capitalist stands in just as great a need ofemploying the workers as the one hundred workers do of being employed by him,does it not follow that both sides are in an equal position? Do not both meetat the market as two equal merchants - from the juridical point of view atleast - one bringing a commodity called a daily wage, to be exchanged for thedaily labor of the worker on the basis of so many hours per day; and the otherbringing his own labor as his commodity to be exchanged for the wage offeredby the capitalist? Since, in our supposition, the demand is for a hundredworkers and the supply is likewise that of a hundred persons, it may seemthat both sides are in an equal position.

Of course nothing of the kind is true. What is it that brings the capitalistto the market? It is the urge to get rich, to increase his capital, to gratifyhis ambitions and social vanities, to be able to indulge in all conceivablepleasures. And what brings the worker to the market? Hunger, the necessity ofeating today and tomorrow. Thus, while being equal from the point of juridicalfiction, the capitalist and the worker are anything but equal from the pointof view of the economic situation, which is the real situation. The capitalistis not threatened with hunger when he comes to the market; he knows very wellthat if he does not find today the workers for whom he is looking, he willstill have enough to eat for quite a long time, owing to the capital of whichhe is the happy possessor. If the workers whom he meets in the market presentdemands which seem excessive to him, because, far from enabling him toincrease his wealth and improve even more his economic position, thoseproposals and conditions might, I do not say equalize, but bring the economicposition of the workers somewhat close to his own - what does he do in thatcase? He turns down those proposals and waits. After all, he was not impelledby an urgent necessity, but by a desire to improve his position, which,compared to that of the workers, is already quite comfortable, and so he canwait. And he will wait, for his business experience has taught him that theresistance of workers who, possessing neither capital, nor comfort, nor anysavings to speak of, are pressed by a relentless necessity, by hunger, thatthis resistance cannot last very long, and that finally he will be able tofind the hundred workers for whom he is looking - for they will be forced toaccept the conditions which he finds it profitable to impose upon them. Ifthey refuse, others will come who will be only too happy to accept suchconditions. That is how things are done daily with the knowledge and in fullview of everyone.

If, as a consequence of the particular circumstances that constantlyinfluence the market, the branch of industry in which he planned at firstto employ his capital does not offer all the advantages that he had hoped,then he will shift his capital elsewhere; thus the bourgeois capitalist isnot tied by nature to any specific industry, but tends to invest (as it iscalled by the economists - exploit is what we say) indifferently in allpossible industries. Let's suppose, finally, that learning of some industrialincapacity or misfortune, he decides not to invest in any industry; well, hewill buy stocks and annuities; and if the interest and dividends seeminsufficient, then he will engage in some occupation, or shall we say, sellhis labor for a time, but in conditions much more lucrative than he hadoffered to his own workers.

The capitalist then comes to the market in the capacity, if not of anabsolutely free agent, at least that of an infinitely freer agent than theworker. What happens in the market is a meeting between a drive for lucre andstarvation, between master and slave. Juridically they are both equal; buteconomically the worker is the serf of the capitalist, even before the markettransaction has been concluded whereby the worker sells his person and hisliberty for a given time. The worker is in the position of a serf because thisterrible threat of starvation which daily hangs over his head and over hisfamily, will force him to accept any conditions imposed by the gainfulcalculations of the capitalist, the industrialist, the employer.

And once the contract has been negotiated, the serfdom of the workers isdoubly increased; or to put it better, before the contract has beennegotiated, goaded by hunger, he is only potentially a serf; after it isnegotiated he becomes a serf in fact. Because what merchandise has he sold tohis employer? It is his labor, his personal services, the productive forces ofhis body, mind, and spirit that are found in him and are inseparable from hisperson - it is therefore himself. From then on, the employer will watch overhim, either directly or by means of overseers; everyday during working hoursand under controlled conditions, the employer will be the owner of his actionsand movements. When he is told: "Do this," the worker is obligated to do it;or he is told: "Go there," he must go. Is this not what is called a serf?

M. Karl Marx, the illustrious leader of German Communism, justly observed inhis magnificent work Das Kapital that if the contract freely entered into bythe vendors of money -in the form of wages - and the vendors of their ownlabor -that is, between the employer and the workers - were concluded not fora definite and limited term only, but for one's whole life, it wouldconstitute real slavery. Concluded for a term only and reserving to theworker the right to quit his employer, this contract constitutes a sort ofvoluntary and transitory serfdom. Yes, transitory and voluntary from thejuridical point of view, but nowise from the point of view of economicpossibility. The worker always has the right to leave his employer, but has hethe means to do so? And if he does quit him, is it in order to lead a freeexistence, in which he will have no master but himself? No, he does it inorder to sell himself to another employer. He is driven to it by the samehunger which forced him to sell himself to the first employer. Thus theworker's liberty, so much exalted by the economists, jurists, and bourgeoisrepublicans, is only a theoretical freedom, lacking any means for its possiblerealization, and consequently it is only a fictitious liberty, an utterfalsehood. The truth is that the whole life of the worker is simply acontinuous and dismaying succession of terms of serfdom -voluntary from thejuridical point of view but compulsory in the economic sense - broken up bymomentarily brief interludes of freedom accompanied by starvation; in otherwords, it is real slavery.

This slavery manifests itself daily in all kinds of ways. Apart from thevexations and oppressive conditions of the contract which turn the worker intoa subordinate, a passive and obedient servant, and the employer into a nearlyabsolute master - apart from all that, it is well known that there is hardlyan industrial enterprise wherein the owner, impelled on the one hand by thetwo-fold instinct of an unappeasable lust for profits and absolute power, andon the other hand, profiting by the economic dependence of the worker, doesnot set aside the terms stipulated in the contract and wring some additionalconcessions in his own favor. Now he will demand more hours of work, that is,over and above those stipulated in the contract; now he will cut down wageson some pretext; now he will impose arbitrary fines, or he will treat theworkers harshly, rudely, and insolently.

But, one may say, in that case the worker can quit. Easier said than done.At times the worker receives part of his wages in advance, or his wife orchildren may be sick, or perhaps his work is poorly paid throughout thisparticular industry. Other employers may be paying even less than his ownemployer, and after quitting this job he may not even be able to find anotherone. And to remain without a job spells death for him and his family. Inaddition, there is an understanding among all employers, and all of themresemble one another. All are almost equally irritating, unjust, and harsh.

Is this calumny? No, it is in the nature of things, and in the logicalnecessity of the relationship existing between the employers and theirworkers.

Law and Government------------------by Alexander Berkman--------------------From: Chapter 3 of "What is Anarchist-Communism?"-------------------------------------------------

You depend on your employer for your wages or your salary, don't you? And yourwages determine your way of living, don't they? The conditions of your life,even what you eat and drink, where you go and with whom you associate, - allof it depends on your wages.

No, you are not a free man. You are dependent on your employer and on yourwages. You are really a wage slave.

The whole working class, under the capitalist system, is dependent on thecapitalist class. The workers are wage slaves.

So, what becomes of your freedom? What can you do with it? Can you do morewith it than your wages permit?

Can't you see that your wage - your salary or income - is all the freedom thatyou have? Your freedom, your liberty, don't go a step further than the wagesyou get.

The freedom that is given you on paper, that is written down in law books andconstitutions, does not do you a bit of good. Such freedom only means that youhave the right to do a certain thing. But it doesn't mean that you can do it.To be able to do it, you must have the chance, the opportunity. You have aright to eat three fine meals a day, but if you haven't the means, theopportunity to get those meals, then what good is that right to you?

So freedom really means opportunity to satisfy your needs and wants. If yourfreedom does not give you that opportunity, then it does you no good. Realfreedom means opportunity and well being. If it does not mean that, it meansnothing.

You see, then, that the whole situation comes to this: Capitalism robs you andmakes a wage slave of you. The law upholds and protects that robbery.

The government fools you into believing that you are independent and free.In this way you are fooled and duped every day of your life. But how does ithappen that you didn't think of it before? How is it that most other peopledon't see it, either?

It is because you and every one else are lied to about this all the time, fromyour earliest childhood.

You are told to be honest, while you are being robbed all your life.

You are commanded to respect the law, while the law protects the capitalistwho is robbing you.

You are taught that killing is wrong, while the government hangs andelectrocutes people and slaughters them in war.

You are told to obey the law and government, though law and government standfor robbery and murder.

Thus all through life you are lied to, fooled, and deceived, so that it willbe easier to make profits out of you, to exploit you.

Because it is not only the employer and the capitalist who make profits out ofyou. The government, the church, tend the school - they all live on yourlabor. You support them all. That is why all of them teach you to be contentwith your lot and behave yourself.

'Is it really true that I support them all?' you ask in amazement.

Let us see. They eat and drink and are clothed, not to speak of the luxuriesthey enjoy. Do they make the things they use and consume, do they do theplanting and sowing and building and so on?

'But they pay for those things,' your friend objects.

Yes, they pay. Suppose a fellow stole fifty dollars from you and then wentand bought with it a suit of clothes for himself. Is that suit by right his?Didn't he pay for it? Well, just so the people who don't produce anything ordo no useful work pay for things. Their money is the profits they or theirparents before them squeezed out of you, out of the workers.

'Then it is not my boss who supports me, but I him?'

Of course. He gives you a job; that is, permission to work in the factory ormill which was not built by him but by other workers like yourself. And forthat permission you help to support him for the rest of your life or as longas you work for him. You support him so generously that he can afford amansion in the city and a home in the country, even several of them, andservants to attend to his wants and those of his family, and for theentertainment of his friends, and for horse races and for boat races, and fora hundred other things. But it is not only to him that you are so generous.Out of your labor, by direct and indirect taxation, are supported the entiregovernment, local, state, and national, the schools and the churches, and allthe other institutions whose business it is to protect profits and keep youfooled. You and your fellow workers, labor as a whole, support them all. Doyou wonder that they all tell you that everything is all right and that youshould be good and keep quiet?

It is good for them that you should keep quiet, because they could not keep onduping and robbing you once you open your eyes and see what's happening to you.

That's why they are all strong for this capitalist system, for law and order'.

But is that system good for you? Do you think it right and just? If not, thenwhy do you put up with it? Why do you support it? 'What can I do?' you say;'I'm only one.'

Are you really only one? Are you not rather one out of many thousands, out ofmillions, all of them exploited and enslaved the same as you are? Only theydon't know it. If they knew it, they wouldn't stand for it. That's sure. Sothe thing is to make them know it.

Every workingman in your city, every toiler in your country, in every country,in the whole world, is exploited and enslaved the same as you are.

And not only the workingmen. The farmers are duped and robbed in the samemanner.

Just like the workingmen, the farmer is dependent on the capitalist class. Hetoils hard all his life, but most of his labor goes to the trusts andmonopolies of the land which by right is no more theirs than the moon is.

The farmer produces the food of the world. He feeds all of us. But before hecan get his goods to us, he is made to pay tribute to the class that livesby the work of others, the profit-making, capitalist class. The farmer ismulcted out of the greater part of his product just as the worker is. He ismulcted by the land owner and by the mortgage holder; by the steel trust andthe railroad. The banker, the commission merchant, the retailer, and a scoreof other middlemen squeeze their profits out of the farmer before he isallowed to get his food to you.

Law and government permit and help this robbery by ruling that the land, whichno man created, belongs to the landlord; the railroads, which the workersbuilt, belong to the railroad magnates; the warehouses, grain elevators, andstorehouses, erected by the workers, belong to the capitalists; all thosemonopolists and capitalists have a right to get profits from the farmer forusing the railroads and other facilities before he can get his food to you.

You can see then, how the farmer is robbed by big capital and business, andhow the law helps in that robbery, just as with the workingman.

But it is not only the worker and the farmer who are exploited and forced togive up the greater part of their product to the capitalists, to those whohave monopolized the land, the railroads, the factories, the machinery, andall natural resources. The entire country, the whole world is made to paytribute to the kings of finance and industry.

The small business man depends on the wholesaler; the wholesaler on themanufacturer; the manufacturer on the trust magnates of his industry; andall of them on the money lords and banks for their credit. The big bankersand financiers can put any man out of business by just withdrawing theircredit from him. They do so whenever they want to squeeze any one out ofbusiness. The business man is entirely at their mercy. If he does not playthe game as they want it, to suit their interests, then they simply drivehim out of the game.

Thus the whole of mankind is dependent upon and enslaved by just a handful ofmen who have monopolized almost the entire wealth of the world, but who havethemselves never created anything.

'But those men work hard,' you say.

Well, some of them don't work at all. Some of them are just idlers, whosebusiness is managed by others. Some of them do work. But what kind of work dothey do? Do they produce anything, as the worker and the farmer do? No, theyproduce nothing, though they may work. They work to mulct people, to getprofits out of them. Does their work benefit you? The highwayman also workshard and takes great risks to boot. His 'work', like the capitalist's, givesemployment to lawyers, jailers, and a host of other retainers, all of whomyour toil supports.

It seems indeed ridiculous that the whole world should slave for the benefitof a handful of monopolists, and that all should have to depend upon them fortheir right and opportunity to live. But the fact is just that. And it is themore ridiculous when you consider that the workers and farmers, who alonecreate all wealth, should be the most dependent and the poorest of all theother classes in society.

It is really monstrous, and it is very sad. Surely your common sense must tellyou that such a situation is nothing short of madness. If the great masses ofpeople, the millions throughout the world, could see how they are fooled,exploited and enslaved, as you see it now, would they stand for such goings on? Surely they would not!

The capitalists know they wouldn't. That is why they need the government tolegalize their methods of robbery, to protect the capitalist system.

And that is why the government needs laws, police and soldiers, courts andprisons to protect capitalism.

But who are the police and the soldiers who protect the capitalists againstyou, against the people?

If they were capitalists themselves, then it would stand to reason why theywant to protect the wealth they have stolen, and why they try to keep up,even by force, the system that gives them the privilege of robbing the people.

But the police and the soldiers, the defenders of 'law and order', are not ofthe capitalist class. They are men from the ranks of the people, poor men whofor pay protect the very system that keeps them poor. It is unbelievable, isit not? Yet it is true. It just comes down to this: some of the slaves protecttheir masters in keeping them and the rest of the people in slavery. In thesame way Great Britain, for instance, keeps the Hindoos in India in subjectionby a police force of the natives, of the Hindoos themselves. Or as Belgiumdoes with the black men in the Congo. Or as any government does with asubjugated people. It is the same system. Here is what it amounts to:Capitalism robs and exploits the whole of the people; the laws legalize anduphold this capitalist robbery; the government uses one part of the peopleto aid and protect the capitalists in robbing the whole of the people. Theentire thing is kept up by educating the people to believe that capitalismis right, that the law is just, and that the government must be obeyed. Doyou see through this game now?

Syndicalism: The Modern Menace to Capitalism--------------------------------------------by Emma Goldman---------------

IN view of the fact that the ideas embodied in Syndicalism have been practisedby the workers for the last half century, even if without the background ofsocial consciousness; that in this country five men had to pay with theirlives because they advocated Syndicalist methods as the most effective, inthe struggle of labor against capital; and that, furthermore, Syndicalism hasbeen consciously practised by the workers of France, Italy and Spain since1895, it is rather amusing to witness some people in America and England nowswooping down upon Syndicalism as a perfectly new and never before heard-ofproposition.

It is astonishing how very naïve Americans are, how crude and immature inmatters of international importance. For all his boasted practical aptitude,the average American is the very last to learn of the modern means and tacticsemployed in the great struggles of his day. Always he lags behind in ideas andmethods that the European workers have for years past been applying with greatsuccess.

It may be contended, of course, that this is merely a sign of youth on thepart of the American. And it is indeed beautiful to possess a young mind,fresh to receive and perceive. But unfortunately the American mind seemsnever to grow, to mature and crystallize its views.

Perhaps that is why an American revolutionist can at the same time be apolitician. That is also the reason why leaders of the Industrial Workers ofthe World continue in the Socialist party, which is antagonistic to theprinciples as well as to the activities of the I. W. W. Also why a rigidMarxian may propose that the Anarchists work together with the faction thatbegan its career by a most bitter and malicious persecution of one of thepioneers of Anarchism, Michael Bakunin. In short, to the indefinite, uncertainmind of the American radical the most contradictory ideas and methods arepossible. The result is a sad chaos in the radical movement, a sort ofintellectual hash, which has neither taste nor character.

Just at present Syndicalism is the pastime of a great many Americans,so-called intellectuals. Not that they know anything about it, except thatsome great authorities --- Sorel, Lagardelle, Berth and others --- stand forit: because the American needs the seal of authority, or he would not acceptan idea, no matter how true and valuable it might be.

Our bourgeois magazines are full of dissertations on Syndicalism. One of ourmost conservative colleges has even gone to the extent of publishing a workof one of its students on the subject, which has the approval of a professor.And all this, not because Syndicalism is a force and is being successfullypractised by the workers of Europe, but because --- as I said before --- ithas official authoritative sanction.

As if Syndicalism had been discovered by the philosophy of Bergson or thetheoretic discourses of Sorel and Berth, and had not existed and lived amongthe workers long before these men wrote about it. The feature whichdistinguishes Syndicalism from most philosophies is that it represents therevolutionary philosophy of labor conceived and born in the actual struggleand experience of the workers themselves --- not in universities, colleges,libraries, or in the brain of some scientists. The revolutionary philosophyof labor, that is the true and vital meaning of Syndicalism.

Already as far back as 1848 a large section of the workers realized the utterfutility of political activity as a means of helping them in their economicstruggle. At that time already the demand went forth for direct economicmeasures, as against the useless waste of energy along political lines. Thiswas the case not only in France, but even prior to that in England, whereRobert Owen, the true revolutionary Socialist, propagated similar ideas.

After years of agitation and experiment the idea was incorporated by the firstconvention of the internationale, in 1867, in the resolution that the economicemancipation of the workers must be the principal aim of all revolutionists,to which everything else is to be subordinated.

In fact, it was this determined radical stand which eventually brought aboutthe split in the revolutionary movement of that day, and its division intotwo factions: the one, under Marx and Engels, aiming at political conquest;the other, under Bakunin and the Latin workers, forging ahead alongindustrial and Syndicalist lines. The further development of those two wingsis familiar to every thinking man and woman: the one has graduallycentralized into a huge machine, with the sole purpose of conquering politicalpower within the existing capitalist State; the other is becoming an ever morevital revolutionary factor, dreaded by the enemy as the greatest menace to itsrule.

It was in the year 1900 while a delegate to the Anarchist Congress in Paris,that I first came in contact with Syndicalism in operation. The Anarchistpress had been discussing the subject for years prior to that; therefore weAnarchists knew something about Syndicalism. But those of us who lived inAmerica had to content themselves with the theoretic side of it.

In 1900, however, I saw its effect upon labor in France: the strength, theenthusiasm and hope with which Syndicalism inspired the workers. It was alsomy good fortune to learn of the man who more than anyone else had directedSyndicalism into definite working channels, Fernand Pelloutier. Unfortunately,I could not meet this remarkable young man, as he was at that time alreadyvery ill with cancer. But wherever I went, with whomever I spoke, the loveand devotion for Pelloutier was wonderful, all agreeing that it was he whohad gathered the discontented forces in the French labor movement and imbuedthem with new life and a new purpose, that of Syndicalism.

On my return to America I immediately began to propagate Syndicalist ideas,especially Direct Action and the General Strike. But it was like talking tothe Rocky Mountains --- no understanding, even among the more radicalelements, and complete indifference in labor ranks.

In 1907 I went as a delegate to the Anarchist Congress at Amsterdam and, whilein Paris, met the most active Syndicalists in the Confédération Générale anTravail: Pouget, Delesalle, Monatte, and many others. More than that, I hadthe opportunity to see Syndicalism in daily operation, in its mostconstructive and inspiring forms.

I allude to this, to indicate that my knowledge of Syndicalism does not comefrom Sorel, Lagardelle, or Berth, but from actual contact with and observationof the tremendous work carried on by the workers of Paris within the ranks ofthe Confédération. It would require a volume to explain in detail whatSyndicalism is doing for the French workers. In the American press you readonly of its resistive methods, of strikes and sabotage, of the conflicts oflabor with capital. These are no doubt very important matters, and yet thechief value of Syndicalism lies much deeper. It lies in the constructive andeducational effect upon the life and thought of the masses.

The fundamental difference between Syndicalism and the old trade union methodsis this: while the old trade unions, without exception, move within the wagesystem and capitalism, recognizing the latter as inevitable, Syndicalismrepudiates and condemns present industrial arrangements as unjust andcriminal, and holds out no hope to the worker for lasting results from thissystem.

Of course Syndicalism, like the old trade unions, fights for immediate gains,but it is not stupid enough to pretend that labor can expect humaneconditions from inhuman economic arrangements in society. Thus it merelywrests from the enemy what it can force him to yield; on the whole, however,Syndicalism aims at, and concentrates its energies upon, the completeoverthrow of the wage system. Indeed, Syndicalism goes further: it aims toliberate labor from every institution that has not for its object the freedevelopment of production for the benefit of all humanity. In short, theultimate purpose of Syndicalism is to reconstruct society from its presentcentralized, authoritative and brutal state to one based upon the free,federated grouping of the workers along lines of economic and social liberty.

With this object in view, Syndicalism works in two directions: first, byundermining the existing institutions; secondly, by developing and educatingthe workers and cultivating their spirit of solidarity, to prepare them fora full, free life, when capitalism shall have been abolished.

Syndicalism is, in essence, the economic expression of Anarchism. Thatcircumstance accounts for the presence of so many Anarchists in theSyndicalist movement. Like Anarchism, Syndicalism prepares the workers alongdirect economic lines, as conscious factors in the great struggles of to-day,as well as conscious factors in the task of reconstructing society alongautonomous industrial lines, as against the paralyzing spirit ofcentralization with its bureaucratic machinery of corruption, inherent inall political parties.

Realizing that the diametrically opposed interests of capital and labor cannever be reconciled, Syndicalism must needs repudiate the old rusticated,worn-out methods of trade unionism, and declare for an open war against thecapitalist régime, as well as against every institution which to-day supportsand protects capitalism.

As a logical sequence Syndicalism, in its daily warfare against capitalism,rejects the contract system, because it does not consider labor and capitalequals, hence cannot consent to an agreement which the one has the power tobreak, while the other must submit to without redress.

For similar reasons Syndicalism rejects negotiations in labor disputes,because such a procedure serves only to give the enemy time to prepare hisend of the fight, thus defeating the very object the workers set out toaccomplish. Also, Syndicalism stands for spontaneity, both as a preserver ofthe fighting strength of labor and also because it takes the enemy unawares,hence compels him to a speedy settlement or causes him great loss.

Syndicalism objects to a large union treasury, because money is as corruptingan element in the ranks of labor as it is in those of capitalism. We inAmerica know this to be only too true. If the labor movement in this countrywere not backed by such large funds, it would not be as conservative as itis, nor would the leaders be so readily corrupted. However, the main reasonfor the opposition of Syndicalism to large treasuries consists in the factthat they create class distinctions and jealousies within the ranks of labor,so detrimental to the spirit of solidarity. The worker whose organization hasa large purse considers himself superior to his poorer brother, just as heregards himself better than the man who earns fifty cents less per day.

The chief ethical value of Syndicalism consists in the stress it lays uponthe necessity of labor getting rid of the element of dissension, parasitismand corruption in its ranks. It seeks to cultivate devotion, solidarity andenthusiasm, which are far more essential and vital in the economic strugglethan money.

As I have already stated, Syndicalism has grown out of the disappointment ofthe workers with politics and parliamentary methods. In the course of itsdevelopment Syndicalism has learned to see in the State --- with itsmouthpiece, the representative system --- one of the strongest supports ofcapitalism; just as it has learned that the army and the church are thechief pillars of the State. It is therefore that Syndicalism has turned itsback upon parliamentarism and political machines, and has set its face towardthe economic arena wherein alone gladiator Labor can meet his foe successfully.

Historic experience sustains the Synclicalists in their uncompromisingopposition to parliamentarism. Many had entered political life and,unwilling to be corrupted by the atmosphere, withdrew from office, to devotethemselves to the economic struggle --- Proudhon, the Dutch revolutionistNieuwenhuis, John Most and numerous others. While those who remained in theparliamentary quagmire ended by betraying their trust, without having gainedanything for labor. But it is unnecessary to discuss here political history.Suffice to say that Syndicalists are anti-parlarnentarians as a result ofbitter experience

Equally so has experience determined their anti-military attitude. Time andagain has the army been used to shoot down strikers and to inculcate thesickening idea of patriotism, for the purpose of dividing the workers againstthemselves and helping the masters to the spoils. The inroads that Syndicalistagitation has made into the superstition of patriotism are evident from thedread of the ruling class for the loyalty of the army, and the rigidpersecution of the anti-militarists. Naturailly --- for the ruling classrealizes much better than the workers that when the soldiers will refuse toobey their superiors, the whole system of capitalism will be doomed.

Indeed, why should the workers sacrifice their children that the latter may beused to shoot their own parents? Therefore Syndicalism is not merely logicalin its anti-military agitation; it is most practical and far-reaching,inasmuch as it robs the enemy of his strongest weapon against labor.

Now, as to the methods employed by Syndicalism --- Direct Action, Sabotage,and the General Strike.

DIRECT ACTION.---Conscious individual or collective effort to protest against,or remedy social conditions through the systematic assertion of the economicpower of the workers.

Sabotage has been decried as criminal, even by so-called revolutionarySocialists. Of course, if you believe that property, which excludes theproducer from its use, is justifiable, then sabotage is indeed a crime. Butunless a Socialist continues to be under the influence of our bourgeoismorality --- a morality which enables the few to monopolize the earth at theexpense of the many --- he cannot consistently maintain that capitalistproperty is inviolate. Sabotage undermines this form of private possession.Can it therefore be considered criminal? On the contrary, it is ethical inthe best sense, since it helps society to get rid of its worst foe, the mostdetrimental factor of social life.

Sabotage is mainly concerned with obstructing, by every possible method, theregular process of production, thereby demonstrating the determination of theworkers to give according to what they receive, and no more. For instance,at the time of the French railroad strike of 1910 perishable goods were sentin slow trains, or in an opposite direction from the one intended. Who but themost ordinary philistine will call that a crime? If the railway men themselvesgo hungry, and the "innocent" public has not enough feeling of solidarity toinsist that these men should get enough to live on, the public has forfeitedthe sympathy of the strikers and must take the consequences.

Another form of sabotage consisted, during this strike, in placing heavy boxeson goods marked "Handle with care," cut glass and china and precious wines.From the standpoint of the law this may have been a crime but from thestandpoint of common humanity it was a very sensible thing. The same is trueof disarranging a loom in a weaving mill, or living up to the letter of thelaw with all its red tape, as the Italian railway men did, thereby causingconfusion in the railway service. In other words, sabotage is merely a weaponof defense in the industrial warfare, which is the more effective because ittouches capitalism in its most vital spot, the pocket.

By the General Strike, Syndicalism means a stoppage of work, the cessation oflabor. Nor need such a strike be postponed until all the workers of aparticular place or country are ready for it. As has been pointed out byPelloutier, Pouget, as well as others, and particularly by recent events inEngland, the General Strike may be started by one industry and exert atremendous force. It is as if one man suddenly raised the cry "Stop thethief!" Immediately others will take up the cry, till the air rings with it.The General Strike, initiated by one determined organization, by one industryor by a small, conscious minority among the workers, is the industrial cry of"Stop the thief," which is soon taken up by many other industries, spreadinglike wildfire in a very, short time.

One of the objections of politicians to the General Strike is that the workersalso would suffer for the necessaries of life. In the first place, the workersare past masters in going hungry; secondly, it is certain that a GeneralStrike is surer of prompt settlement than an ordinary strike. Witness thetransport and miner strikes in England: how quickly the lords of State andcapital were forced to make peace! Besides, Syndicalism recognizes the rightof the producers to the things which they have created; namely, the right ofthe workers to help themselves if the strike does not meet with speedysettlement.

When Sorel maintains that the General Strike is an inspiration necessary forthe people to give their life meaning, he is expressing a thought which theAnarchists have never tired of emphasizing. Yet I do not hold with Sorel thatthe General Strike is a "social myth," that may never be realized. I thinkthat the General Strike will become a fact the moment labor understands itsfull value --- its destructive as well as constructive value, as indeed manyworkers all over the world are beginning to realize.

These ideas and methods of Syndicalism some may consider entirely negative,though they are far from it in their effect upon society to-day. ButSyndicalism has also a directly positive aspect. In fact, much more timeand effort is being devoted to that phase than to the others. Various formsof Syndicalist activity are designed to prepare the workers, even withinpresent social and industrial conditions, for the life of a new and bettersociety. To that end the masses are trained in the spirit of mutual aid andbrotherhood, their initiative and self-reliance developed, and an esprit decorps maintained whose very soul is solidarity of purpose and the communityof interests of the international proletariat.

Chief among these activities are the mutualitées, or mutual aid societies,established by the French Syndicalists. Their object is, foremost, to securework for unemployed members, and to further that spirit of mutual assistancewhich rests upon the consciousness of labor's identity of intereststhroughout the world.

In his "The Labor Movement in France," Mr. L. Levine states that during theyear 1902 over 74,000 workers, out of a total of 99,000 applicants, wereprovided with work by these societies, without being compelled to submit tothe extortion of the employment bureau sharks.

These latter are a source of the deepest degradation, as well as of mostshameless exploitation, of the worker. Especially does it hold true ofAmerica, where the employment agencies are in many cases also maskeddetective agencies, supplying workers in need of employment to strike regions,under false promises of steady, remunerative employment.

The French Confédération had long realized the vicious rôle of employmentagencies as leeches upon the jobless worker and nurseries of scabbery. By thethreat of a General Strike the French Syndicalists forced the government toabolish the employment bureau sharks, and the workers' own mutualitées havealmost entirely superseded them, to the great economic and moral advantage oflabor.

Besides the mutualitées, the French Syndicalists have established otheractivities tending to weld labor in closer bonds of solidarity and mutualaid. Among these are the efforts to assist workingmen journeying from placeto place. The practical as well as ethical value of such assistance isinestimable. It serves to instill the spirit of fellowship and gives a senseof security in the feeling of oneness with the large family of labor. This isone of the vital effects of the Syndicalist spirit in France and other Latincountries. What a tremendous need there is for just such efforts in thiscountry! Can anyone doubt the significance of the consciousness of workingmencoming from Chicago, for instance, to New York, sure to find there amongtheir comrades welcome lodging and food until they have secured employment?This form of activity is entirely foreign to the labor bodies of this country,and as a result the traveling workman in search of a job --- the "blanketstiff" --- is constantly at the mercy of the constable and policeman, a victimof the vagrancy laws, and the unfortunate material whence is recruited,through stress of necessity, the army of scabdom.

I have repeatedly witnessed, while at the headquarters of the Confédération,the cases of workingmen who came with their union cards from various parts ofFrance, and even from other countries of Europe, and were supplied with mealsand lodging, and encouraged by every evidence of brotherly spirit, and madeto feel at home by their fellow workers of the Confédération. It is due, to agreat extent, to these activities of the Synclicalists that the Frenchgovernment is forced to employ the army for strikebreaking, because fewworkers are willing to lend themselves for such service, thanks to theefforts and tactics of Syndicalism.

No less in importance than the mutual aid activities of the Syndicalists isthe cooperation established by them between the city, end the country, thefactory worker and the peasant or farmer, the latter providing the workerswith food supplies during strikes, or taking care of the strikers' children.This form of practical solidarity has for the first time been tried in thiscountry during the Lawrence strike, with inspiring results.

And all these Syndicalist activities are permeated with the spirit ofeducational work, carried on systematically by evening classes on all vitalsubjects treated from an unbiased, libertarian standpoint --- not theadulterated "knowledge" with which the minds are stuffed in our publicschools. The scope of the education is truly phenomenal, including s

Sick of this life,Not that you'd care. I'm not the only one with whom these feelings I share..Nobody understands, quite why we're here, We're searchin' for answers that never appear..But maybe if I looked real hard I'd I'd see you're tryin' too to understand this life that we're all going through..(Then when she said she was gonna like wreck my car... I didn't know what to do)

The Wealth of Nations (1776) - An Excerpt from Chapter 8 of Vol. 1------------------------------------------------------------------by Adam Smith-------------

What are the common wages of labour, depends everywhere upon the contractusually made between those two parties, whose interests are by no means thesame. The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little aspossible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latterin order to lower the wages of labour.

It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, uponall ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force theother into a compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number,can combine much more easily; and the law, besides, authorizes, or at leastdoes not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen.We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work;but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes the masters canhold out much longer. A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, a merchant,though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year ortwo upon the stocks which they have already acquired. Many workmen could notsubsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year withoutemployment. In the long run the workman may be as necessary to his master ashis master is to him; but the necessity is not so immediate.

We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, thoughfrequently of those of workmen. BUT WHOEVER IMAGINES, UPON THIS ACCOUNT, THATMASTERS RARELY COMBINE, IS AS IGNORANT OF THE WORLD AS OF THE SUBJECT. MASTERSARE ALWAYS AND EVERYWHERE IN A SORT OF TACIT, BUT CONSTANT AND UNIFORMCOMBINATION, NOT TO RAISE THE WAGES OF LABOUR ABOVE THEIR ACTUAL RATE. TOVIOLATE THIS COMBINATION IS EVERYWHERE A MOST UNPOPULAR ACTION, AND A SORT OFREPROACH TO A MASTER AMONG HIS NEIGHBOURS AND EQUALS. WE SELDOM, INDEED, HEAROF THIS COMBINATION, BECAUSE IT IS THE USUAL, AND ONE MAY SAY, THE NATURALSTATE OF THINGS, WHICH NOBODY EVER HEARS OF. Masters, too, sometimes enterinto particular combinations to sink the wages of labour even below this rate.These are always conducted with the utmost silence and secrecy, till themoment of execution, and when the workmen yield, as they sometimes do, withoutresistance, though severely felt by them, they are never heard of by otherpeople. Such combinations, however, are frequently resisted by a contrarydefensive combination of the workmen; who sometimes too, without anyprovocation of this kind, combine of their own accord to raise the price oftheir labour. Their usual pretences are, sometimes the high price ofprovisions; sometimes the great profit which their masters make by their work.But whether their combinations be offensive or defensive, they are alwaysabundantly heard of. In order to bring the point to a speedy decision, theyhave always recourse to the loudest clamour, and sometimes to the mostshocking violence and outrage. They are desperate, and act with the follyand extravagance of desperate men, who must either starve, or frighten theirmasters into an immediate compliance with their demands. The masters uponthese occasions are just as clamorous upon the other side, and never ceaseto call aloud for the assistance of the civil magistrate, and the rigorousexecution of those laws which have been enacted with so much severity againstthe combinations of servants, labourers, and journeymen. The workmen,accordingly, very seldom derive any advantage from the violence of thosetumultuous combinations, which, partly from the interposition of the civilmagistrate, partly from the necessity superior steadiness of the masters,partly from the necessity which the greater part of the workmen are under ofsubmitting for the sake of present subsistence, generally end in nothing, butthe punishment or ruin of the ringleaders.

Is it necessary to repeat here the irrefutable arguments of Socialism which nobourgeois economist has yet succeeded in disproving? What is property, whatis capital in their present form? For the capitalist and the property ownerthey mean the power and the right, guaranteed by the State, to live withoutworking. And since neither property nor capital produces anything when notfertilized by labor - that means the power and the right to live by exploitingthe work of someone else, the right to exploit the work of those who possessneither property nor capital and who thus are forced to sell their productivepower to the lucky owners of both. Note that I have left out of accountaltogether the following question: In what way did property and capital everfall into the hands of their present owners? This is a question which, whenenvisaged from the points of view of history, logic, and justice, cannot beanswered in any other way but one which would serve as an indictment againstthe present owners. I shall therefore confine myself here to the statementthat property owners and capitalists, inasmuch as they live not by their ownproductive labor but by getting land rent, house rent, interest upon theircapital, or by speculation on land, buildings, and capital, or by thecommercial and industrial exploitation of the manual labor of the proletariat,all live at the expense of the proletariat. (Speculation and exploitation nodoubt also constitute a sort of labor, but altogether non-productive labor.)

I know only too well that this mode of life is highly esteemed in allcivilized countries, that it is expressly and tenderly protected by all theStates, and that the States, religions, and all the juridical laws, bothcriminal and civil, and all the political governments, monarchies andrepublican - with their immense judicial and police apparatuses and theirstanding armies - have no other mission but to consecrate and protect suchpractices. In the presence of these powerful and respectable authorities Icannot even permit myself to ask whether this mode of life is legitimate fromthe point of view of human justice, liberty, human equality, and fraternity.I simply ask myself: Under such conditions, are fraternity and equalitypossible between the exploiter and the exploited, are justice and freedompossible for the exploited?

Let us even suppose, as it is being maintained by the bourgeois economistsand with them all the lawyers, all the worshippers and believers in thejuridical right, all the priests of the civil and criminal code - let ussuppose that this economic relationship between the exploiter and theexploited is altogether legitimate, that it is the inevitable consequence,the product of an eternal, indestructible social law, yet still it willalways be true that exploitation precludes brotherhood and equality. Itgoes without saying that it precludes economic equality. Suppose I am yourworker and you are my employer. If I offer my labor at the lowest price, if Iconsent to have you live off my labor, it is certainly not because of devotionor brotherly love for you. And no bourgeois economist would dare to say that itwas, however idyllic and naive their reasoning becomes when they begin to speakabout reciprocal affections and mutual relations which should exist betweenemployers and employees. No, I do it because my family and I would starve todeath if I did not work for an employer. Thus I am forced to sell you my laborat the lowest possible price, and I am forced to do it by the threat of hunger.

But - the economists tell us - the property owners, the capitalists, theemployers, are likewise forced to seek out and purchase the labor of theproletariat. Yes, it is true, they are forced to do it, but not in the samemeasure. Had there been equality between those who offer their labor andthose who purchase it, between the necessity of selling one's labor and thenecessity of buying it, the slavery and misery of the proletariat would notexist. But then there would be neither capitalists, nor property owners, northe proletariat, nor rich, nor poor: there would only be workers. It isprecisely because such equality does not exist that we have and are bound tohave exploiters.

This equality does not exist because in modern society where wealth isproduced by the intervention of capital paying wages to labor, the growthof the population outstrips the growth of production, which results in thesupply of labor necessarily surpassing the demand and leading to a relativesinking of the level of wages. Production thus constituted, monopolized,exploited by bourgeois capital, is pushed on the one hand by the mutualcompetition of the capitalists to concentrate evermore in the hands of anever diminishing number of powerful capitalists, or in the hands ofjoint-stock companies which, owing to the merging of their capital, aremore powerful than the biggest isolated capitalists. (And the small andmedium-sized capitalists, not being able to produce at the same price as thebig capitalists, naturally succumb in the deadly struggle.) On the otherhand, all enterprises are forced by the same competition to sell theirproducts at the lowest possible price. It [capitalist monopoly] can attainthis two-fold result only by forcing out an ever-growing number of small ormedium-sized capitalists, speculators, merchants, or industrialists, fromthe world of exploiters into the world of the exploited proletariat, and atthe same time squeezing out ever greater savings from the wages of the sameproletariat.

On the other hand, the mass of the proletariat, growing as a result of thegeneral increase of the population - which, as we know, not even povertycan stop effectively - and through the increasing proletarianization of thepetty-bourgeoisie, ex-owners, capitalists, merchants, and industrialists -growing, as I have said, at a much more rapid rate than the productivecapacities of an economy that is exploited by bourgeois capital - thisgrowing mass of the proletariat is placed in a condition wherein the workersare forced into disastrous competition against one another.

For since they possess no other means of existence but their own manuallabor, they are driven, by the fear of seeing themselves replaced by others,to sell it at the lowest price. This tendency of the workers, or rather thenecessity to which they are condemned by their own poverty, combined withthe tendency of the employers to sell the products of their workers, andconsequently buy their labor, at the lowest price, constantly reproducesand consolidates the poverty of the proletariat. Since he finds himself ina state of poverty, the worker is compelled to sell his labor for almostnothing, and because he sells that product for almost nothing, he sinks intoever greater poverty.

Yes, greater misery, indeed! For in this galley-slave labor the productiveforce of the workers, abused, ruthlessly exploited, excessively wasted andunderfed, is rapidly used up. And once used up, what can be its value onthe market, of what worth is this sole commodity which he possesses and uponthe daily sale of which he depends for a livelihood? Nothing! And then? Thennothing is left for the worker but to die.

What, in a given country, is the lowest possible wage? It is the price of thatwhich is considered by the proletarians of that country as absolutelynecessary to keep oneself alive. All the bourgeois economists are in agreementon this point. Turgot, who saw fit to call himself the `virtuous minister' ofLouis XVI, and really was an honest man, said:

"The simple worker who owns nothing more than his hands, has nothing else tosell than his labor. He sells it more or less expensively; but its pricewhether high or low, does not depend on him alone: it depends on an agreementwith whoever will pay for his labor. The employer pays as little as possible;when given the choice between a great number of workers, the employer prefersthe one who works cheap. The workers are, then, forced to lower their price incompetition each against the other. In all types of labor, it necessarilyfollows that the salary of the worker is limited to what is necessary forsurvival." (Reflexions sur la formation et la distribution des richesses)

J.B. Say, the true father of bourgeois economists in France also said: "Wagesare much higher when more demand exists for labor and less if offered, and arelowered accordingly when more labor is offered and less demanded. It is therelation between supply and demand which regulates the price of thismerchandise called the workers' labor, as are regulated all other publicservices. When wages rise a little higher than the price necessary for theworkers' families to maintain themselves, their children multiply and a largersupply soon develops in proportion with the greater demand. When, on thecontrary, the demand for workers is less than the quantity of people offeringto work, their gains decline back to the price necessary for the class tomaintain itself at the same number. The families more burdened with childrendisappear; from them forward the supply of labor declines, and with less laborbeing offered, the price rises... In such a way it is difficult for the wagesof the laborer to rise above or fall below the price necessary to maintain theclass (the workers, the proletariat) in the number required." (Cours completd' economie politique)

After citing Turgot and J.B. Say, Proudhon cries: "The price, as compared tothe value (in real social economy) is something essentially mobile,consequently, essentially variable, and that in its variations, it is notregulated more than by the concurrence, concurrence, let us not forget, thatas Turgot and Say agree, has the necessary effect not to give to wages to theworker more than enough to barely prevent death by starvation, and maintainthe class in the numbers needed."1

The current price of primary necessities constitutes the prevailing constantlevel above which workers' wages can never rise for a very long time, butbeneath which they drop very often, which constantly results in inanition,sickness, and death, until a sufficient number of workers disappear toequalize again the supply of and demand for labor. What the economists callequalized supply and demand does not constitute real equality between thosewho offer their labor for sale and those who purchase it. Suppose that I, amanufacturer, need a hundred workers and that exactly a hundred workerspresent themselves in the market - only one hundred, for if more came, thesupply would exceed demand, resulting in lowered wages. But since only onehundred appear, and since I, the manufacturer, need only that number - neithermore nor less - it would seem at first that complete equality was established;that supply and demand being equal in number, they should likewise be equal inother respects. Does it follow that the workers can demand from me a wage andconditions of work assuring them of a truly free, dignified, and humanexistence? Not at all! If I grant them those conditions and those wages, I,the capitalist, shall not gain thereby any more than they will. But then,why should I have to plague myself and become ruined by offering them theprofits of my capital? If I want to work myself as workers do, I will investmy capital somewhere else, wherever I can get the highest interest, and willoffer my labor for sale to some capitalist just as my workers do.

If, profiting by the powerful initiative afforded me by my capital, I askthose hundred workers to fertilize that capital with their labor, it is notbecause of my sympathy for their sufferings, nor because of a spirit ofjustice, nor because of love for humanity. The capitalists are by no meansphilanthropists; they would be ruined if they practiced philanthropy. It isbecause I hope to draw from the labor of the workers sufficient profit to beable to live comfortably, even richly, while at the same time increasing mycapital - and all that without having to work myself. Of course I shall worktoo, but my work will be of an altogether different kind and I will beremunerated at a much higher rate than the workers. It will not be the work ofproduction but that of administration and exploitation.

But isn't administrative work also productive work? No doubt it is, forlacking a good and an intelligent administration, manual labor will notproduce anything or it will produce very little and very badly. But from thepoint of view of justice and the needs of production itself, it is not at allnecessary that this work should be monopolized in my hands, nor, above all,that I should be compensated at a rate so much higher than manual labor. Theco-operative associations already have proven that workers are quite capableof administering industrial enterprises, that it can be done by workerselected from their midst and who receive the same wage. Therefore if Iconcentrate in my hands the administrative power, it is not because theinterests of production demand it, but in order to serve my own ends, the endsof exploitation. As the absolute boss of my establishment I get for my laborten or twenty times more than my workers get for theirs, and this is truedespite the fact that my labor is incomparably less painful than theirs.

But the capitalist, the business owner, runs risks, they say, while the workerrisks nothing. This is not true, because when seen from his side, all thedisadvantages are on the part of the worker. The business owner can conducthis affairs poorly, he can be wiped out in a bad deal, or be a victim of acommercial crisis, or by an unforeseen catastrophe; in a word he can ruinhimself. This is true. But does ruin mean from the bourgeois point of view tobe reduced to the same level of misery as those who die of hunger, or to beforced among the ranks of the common laborers? This so rarely happens, that wemight as well say never. Afterwards it is rare that the capitalist does notretain something, despite the appearance of ruin. Nowadays all bankruptciesare more or less fraudulent. But if absolutely nothing is saved, there arealways family ties, and social relations, who, with help from the businessskills learned which they pass to their children, permit them to getpositions for themselves and their children in the higher ranks of labor, inmanagement; to be a state functionary, to be an executive in a commercial orindustrial business, to end up, although dependent, with an income superiorto what they paid their former workers.

The risks of the worker are infinitely greater. After all, if theestablishment in which he is employed goes bankrupt, he must go several daysand sometimes several weeks without work, and for him it is more than ruin,it is death; because he eats everyday what he earns. The savings of workersare fairy tales invented by bourgeois economists to lull their weak sentimentof justice, the remorse that is awakened by chance in the bosom of theirclass. This ridiculous and hateful myth will never soothe the anguish of theworker. He knows the expense of satisfying the daily needs of his largefamily. If he had savings, he would not send his poor children, from the ageof six, to wither away, to grow weak, to be murdered physically and morallyin the factories, where they are forced to work night and day, a working dayof twelve and fourteen hours.

If it happens sometimes that the worker makes a small savings, it is quicklyconsumed by the inevitable periods of unemployment which often cruellyinterrupt his work, as well as by the unforeseen accidents and illnesses whichbefall his family. The accidents and illnesses that can overtake himconstitute a risk that makes all the risks of the employer nothing incomparison: because for the worker debilitating illness can destroy hisproductive ability, his labor power. Over all, prolonged illness is the mostterrible bankruptcy, a bankruptcy that means for him and his children, hungerand death.

I know full well that under these conditions that if I were a capitalist, whoneeds a hundred workers to fertilize my capital, that on employing theseworkers, all the advantages are for me, all the disadvantages for them. Ipropose nothing more nor less than to exploit them, and if you wish me to besincere about it, and promise to guard me well, I will tell them:

"Look, my children, I have some capital which by itself cannot produceanything, because a dead thing cannot produce anything. I have nothingproductive without labor. As it goes, I cannot benefit from consuming itunproductively, since having consumed it, I would be left with nothing. Butthanks to the social and political institutions which rule over us and areall in my favor, in the existing economy my capital is supposed to be aproducer as well: it earns me interest. From whom this interest must be taken- and it must be from someone, since in reality by itself it producesabsolutely nothing - this does not concern you. It is enough for you to knowthat it renders interest. Alone this interest is insufficient to cover myexpenses. I am not an ordinary man as you. I cannot be, nor do I want to be,content with little. I want to live, to inhabit a beautiful house, to eat anddrink well, to ride in a carriage, to maintain a good appearance, in short,to have all the good things in life. I also want to give a good education tomy children, to make them into gentlemen, and send them away to study, andafterwards, having become much more educated than you, they can dominate youone day as I dominate you today. And as education alone is not enough, I wantto give them a grand inheritance, so that divided between them they will beleft almost as rich as I. Consequently, besides all the good things in lifeI want to give myself, I also want to increase my capital. How will I achievethis goal? Armed with this capital I propose to exploit you, and I proposethat you permit me to exploit you. You will work and I will collect andappropriate and sell for my own behalf the product of your labor, withoutgiving you more than a portion which is absolutely necessary to keep you fromdying of hunger today, so that at the end of tomorrow you will still work forme in the same conditions; and when you have been exhausted, I will throw youout, and replace you with others. Know it well, I will pay you a salary assmall, and impose on you a working day as long, working conditions as severe,as despotic, as harsh as possible; not from wickedness - not from a motive ofhatred towards you, nor an intent to do you harm - but from the love of wealthand to get rich quick; because the less I pay you and the more you work, themore I will gain."

This is what is said implicitly by every capitalist, every industrialist,every business owner, every employer who demands the labor power of the workersthey hire.

But since supply and demand are equal, why do the workers accept the conditionslaid down by the employer? If the capitalist stands in just as great a need ofemploying the workers as the one hundred workers do of being employed by him,does it not follow that both sides are in an equal position? Do not both meetat the market as two equal merchants - from the juridical point of view atleast - one bringing a commodity called a daily wage, to be exchanged for thedaily labor of the worker on the basis of so many hours per day; and the otherbringing his own labor as his commodity to be exchanged for the wage offeredby the capitalist? Since, in our supposition, the demand is for a hundredworkers and the supply is likewise that of a hundred persons, it may seemthat both sides are in an equal position.

Of course nothing of the kind is true. What is it that brings the capitalistto the market? It is the urge to get rich, to increase his capital, to gratifyhis ambitions and social vanities, to be able to indulge in all conceivablepleasures. And what brings the worker to the market? Hunger, the necessity ofeating today and tomorrow. Thus, while being equal from the point of juridicalfiction, the capitalist and the worker are anything but equal from the pointof view of the economic situation, which is the real situation. The capitalistis not threatened with hunger when he comes to the market; he knows very wellthat if he does not find today the workers for whom he is looking, he willstill have enough to eat for quite a long time, owing to the capital of whichhe is the happy possessor. If the workers whom he meets in the market presentdemands which seem excessive to him, because, far from enabling him toincrease his wealth and improve even more his economic position, thoseproposals and conditions might, I do not say equalize, but bring the economicposition of the workers somewhat close to his own - what does he do in thatcase? He turns down those proposals and waits. After all, he was not impelledby an urgent necessity, but by a desire to improve his position, which,compared to that of the workers, is already quite comfortable, and so he canwait. And he will wait, for his business experience has taught him that theresistance of workers who, possessing neither capital, nor comfort, nor anysavings to speak of, are pressed by a relentless necessity, by hunger, thatthis resistance cannot last very long, and that finally he will be able tofind the hundred workers for whom he is looking - for they will be forced toaccept the conditions which he finds it profitable to impose upon them. Ifthey refuse, others will come who will be only too happy to accept suchconditions. That is how things are done daily with the knowledge and in fullview of everyone.

If, as a consequence of the particular circumstances that constantlyinfluence the market, the branch of industry in which he planned at firstto employ his capital does not offer all the advantages that he had hoped,then he will shift his capital elsewhere; thus the bourgeois capitalist isnot tied by nature to any specific industry, but tends to invest (as it iscalled by the economists - exploit is what we say) indifferently in allpossible industries. Let's suppose, finally, that learning of some industrialincapacity or misfortune, he decides not to invest in any industry; well, hewill buy stocks and annuities; and if the interest and dividends seeminsufficient, then he will engage in some occupation, or shall we say, sellhis labor for a time, but in conditions much more lucrative than he hadoffered to his own workers.

The capitalist then comes to the market in the capacity, if not of anabsolutely free agent, at least that of an infinitely freer agent than theworker. What happens in the market is a meeting between a drive for lucre andstarvation, between master and slave. Juridically they are both equal; buteconomically the worker is the serf of the capitalist, even before the markettransaction has been concluded whereby the worker sells his person and hisliberty for a given time. The worker is in the position of a serf because thisterrible threat of starvation which daily hangs over his head and over hisfamily, will force him to accept any conditions imposed by the gainfulcalculations of the capitalist, the industrialist, the employer.

And once the contract has been negotiated, the serfdom of the workers isdoubly increased; or to put it better, before the contract has beennegotiated, goaded by hunger, he is only potentially a serf; after it isnegotiated he becomes a serf in fact. Because what merchandise has he sold tohis employer? It is his labor, his personal services, the productive forces ofhis body, mind, and spirit that are found in him and are inseparable from hisperson - it is therefore himself. From then on, the employer will watch overhim, either directly or by means of overseers; everyday during working hoursand under controlled conditions, the employer will be the owner of his actionsand movements. When he is told: "Do this," the worker is obligated to do it;or he is told: "Go there," he must go. Is this not what is called a serf?

M. Karl Marx, the illustrious leader of German Communism, justly observed inhis magnificent work Das Kapital that if the contract freely entered into bythe vendors of money -in the form of wages - and the vendors of their ownlabor -that is, between the employer and the workers - were concluded not fora definite and limited term only, but for one's whole life, it wouldconstitute real slavery. Concluded for a term only and reserving to theworker the right to quit his employer, this contract constitutes a sort ofvoluntary and transitory serfdom. Yes, transitory and voluntary from thejuridical point of view, but nowise from the point of view of economicpossibility. The worker always has the right to leave his employer, but has hethe means to do so? And if he does quit him, is it in order to lead a freeexistence, in which he will have no master but himself? No, he does it inorder to sell himself to another employer. He is driven to it by the samehunger which forced him to sell himself to the first employer. Thus theworker's liberty, so much exalted by the economists, jurists, and bourgeoisrepublicans, is only a theoretical freedom, lacking any means for its possiblerealization, and consequently it is only a fictitious liberty, an utterfalsehood. The truth is that the whole life of the worker is simply acontinuous and dismaying succession of terms of serfdom -voluntary from thejuridical point of view but compulsory in the economic sense - broken up bymomentarily brief interludes of freedom accompanied by starvation; in otherwords, it is real slavery.

This slavery manifests itself daily in all kinds of ways. Apart from thevexations and oppressive conditions of the contract which turn the worker intoa subordinate, a passive and obedient servant, and the employer into a nearlyabsolute master - apart from all that, it is well known that there is hardlyan industrial enterprise wherein the owner, impelled on the one hand by thetwo-fold instinct of an unappeasable lust for profits and absolute power, andon the other hand, profiting by the economic dependence of the worker, doesnot set aside the terms stipulated in the contract and wring some additionalconcessions in his own favor. Now he will demand more hours of work, that is,over and above those stipulated in the contract; now he will cut down wageson some pretext; now he will impose arbitrary fines, or he will treat theworkers harshly, rudely, and insolently.

But, one may say, in that case the worker can quit. Easier said than done.At times the worker receives part of his wages in advance, or his wife orchildren may be sick, or perhaps his work is poorly paid throughout thisparticular industry. Other employers may be paying even less than his ownemployer, and after quitting this job he may not even be able to find anotherone. And to remain without a job spells death for him and his family. Inaddition, there is an understanding among all employers, and all of themresemble one another. All are almost equally irritating, unjust, and harsh.

Is this calumny? No, it is in the nature of things, and in the logicalnecessity of the relationship existing between the employers and theirworkers.

Law and Government------------------by Alexander Berkman--------------------From: Chapter 3 of "What is Anarchist-Communism?"-------------------------------------------------

You depend on your employer for your wages or your salary, don't you? And yourwages determine your way of living, don't they? The conditions of your life,even what you eat and drink, where you go and with whom you associate, - allof it depends on your wages.

No, you are not a free man. You are dependent on your employer and on yourwages. You are really a wage slave.

The whole working class, under the capitalist system, is dependent on thecapitalist class. The workers are wage slaves.

So, what becomes of your freedom? What can you do with it? Can you do morewith it than your wages permit?

Can't you see that your wage - your salary or income - is all the freedom thatyou have? Your freedom, your liberty, don't go a step further than the wagesyou get.

The freedom that is given you on paper, that is written down in law books andconstitutions, does not do you a bit of good. Such freedom only means that youhave the right to do a certain thing. But it doesn't mean that you can do it.To be able to do it, you must have the chance, the opportunity. You have aright to eat three fine meals a day, but if you haven't the means, theopportunity to get those meals, then what good is that right to you?

So freedom really means opportunity to satisfy your needs and wants. If yourfreedom does not give you that opportunity, then it does you no good. Realfreedom means opportunity and well being. If it does not mean that, it meansnothing.

You see, then, that the whole situation comes to this: Capitalism robs you andmakes a wage slave of you. The law upholds and protects that robbery.

The government fools you into believing that you are independent and free.In this way you are fooled and duped every day of your life. But how does ithappen that you didn't think of it before? How is it that most other peopledon't see it, either?

It is because you and every one else are lied to about this all the time, fromyour earliest childhood.

You are told to be honest, while you are being robbed all your life.

You are commanded to respect the law, while the law protects the capitalistwho is robbing you.

You are taught that killing is wrong, while the government hangs andelectrocutes people and slaughters them in war.

You are told to obey the law and government, though law and government standfor robbery and murder.

Thus all through life you are lied to, fooled, and deceived, so that it willbe easier to make profits out of you, to exploit you.

Because it is not only the employer and the capitalist who make profits out ofyou. The government, the church, tend the school - they all live on yourlabor. You support them all. That is why all of them teach you to be contentwith your lot and behave yourself.

'Is it really true that I support them all?' you ask in amazement.

Let us see. They eat and drink and are clothed, not to speak of the luxuriesthey enjoy. Do they make the things they use and consume, do they do theplanting and sowing and building and so on?

'But they pay for those things,' your friend objects.

Yes, they pay. Suppose a fellow stole fifty dollars from you and then wentand bought with it a suit of clothes for himself. Is that suit by right his?Didn't he pay for it? Well, just so the people who don't produce anything ordo no useful work pay for things. Their money is the profits they or theirparents before them squeezed out of you, out of the workers.

'Then it is not my boss who supports me, but I him?'

Of course. He gives you a job; that is, permission to work in the factory ormill which was not built by him but by other workers like yourself. And forthat permission you help to support him for the rest of your life or as longas you work for him. You support him so generously that he can afford amansion in the city and a home in the country, even several of them, andservants to attend to his wants and those of his family, and for theentertainment of his friends, and for horse races and for boat races, and fora hundred other things. But it is not only to him that you are so generous.Out of your labor, by direct and indirect taxation, are supported the entiregovernment, local, state, and national, the schools and the churches, and allthe other institutions whose business it is to protect profits and keep youfooled. You and your fellow workers, labor as a whole, support them all. Doyou wonder that they all tell you that everything is all right and that youshould be good and keep quiet?

It is good for them that you should keep quiet, because they could not keep onduping and robbing you once you open your eyes and see what's happening to you.

That's why they are all strong for this capitalist system, for law and order'.

But is that system good for you? Do you think it right and just? If not, thenwhy do you put up with it? Why do you support it? 'What can I do?' you say;'I'm only one.'

Are you really only one? Are you not rather one out of many thousands, out ofmillions, all of them exploited and enslaved the same as you are? Only theydon't know it. If they knew it, they wouldn't stand for it. That's sure. Sothe thing is to make them know it.

Every workingman in your city, every toiler in your country, in every country,in the whole world, is exploited and enslaved the same as you are.

And not only the workingmen. The farmers are duped and robbed in the samemanner.

Just like the workingmen, the farmer is dependent on the capitalist class. Hetoils hard all his life, but most of his labor goes to the trusts andmonopolies of the land which by right is no more theirs than the moon is.

The farmer produces the food of the world. He feeds all of us. But before hecan get his goods to us, he is made to pay tribute to the class that livesby the work of others, the profit-making, capitalist class. The farmer ismulcted out of the greater part of his product just as the worker is. He ismulcted by the land owner and by the mortgage holder; by the steel trust andthe railroad. The banker, the commission merchant, the retailer, and a scoreof other middlemen squeeze their profits out of the farmer before he isallowed to get his food to you.

Law and government permit and help this robbery by ruling that the land, whichno man created, belongs to the landlord; the railroads, which the workersbuilt, belong to the railroad magnates; the warehouses, grain elevators, andstorehouses, erected by the workers, belong to the capitalists; all thosemonopolists and capitalists have a right to get profits from the farmer forusing the railroads and other facilities before he can get his food to you.

You can see then, how the farmer is robbed by big capital and business, andhow the law helps in that robbery, just as with the workingman.

But it is not only the worker and the farmer who are exploited and forced togive up the greater part of their product to the capitalists, to those whohave monopolized the land, the railroads, the factories, the machinery, andall natural resources. The entire country, the whole world is made to paytribute to the kings of finance and industry.

The small business man depends on the wholesaler; the wholesaler on themanufacturer; the manufacturer on the trust magnates of his industry; andall of them on the money lords and banks for their credit. The big bankersand financiers can put any man out of business by just withdrawing theircredit from him. They do so whenever they want to squeeze any one out ofbusiness. The business man is entirely at their mercy. If he does not playthe game as they want it, to suit their interests, then they simply drivehim out of the game.

Thus the whole of mankind is dependent upon and enslaved by just a handful ofmen who have monopolized almost the entire wealth of the world, but who havethemselves never created anything.

'But those men work hard,' you say.

Well, some of them don't work at all. Some of them are just idlers, whosebusiness is managed by others. Some of them do work. But what kind of work dothey do? Do they produce anything, as the worker and the farmer do? No, theyproduce nothing, though they may work. They work to mulct people, to getprofits out of them. Does their work benefit you? The highwayman also workshard and takes great risks to boot. His 'work', like the capitalist's, givesemployment to lawyers, jailers, and a host of other retainers, all of whomyour toil supports.

It seems indeed ridiculous that the whole world should slave for the benefitof a handful of monopolists, and that all should have to depend upon them fortheir right and opportunity to live. But the fact is just that. And it is themore ridiculous when you consider that the workers and farmers, who alonecreate all wealth, should be the most dependent and the poorest of all theother classes in society.

It is really monstrous, and it is very sad. Surely your common sense must tellyou that such a situation is nothing short of madness. If the great masses ofpeople, the millions throughout the world, could see how they are fooled,exploited and enslaved, as you see it now, would they stand for such goings on? Surely they would not!

The capitalists know they wouldn't. That is why they need the government tolegalize their methods of robbery, to protect the capitalist system.

And that is why the government needs laws, police and soldiers, courts andprisons to protect capitalism.

But who are the police and the soldiers who protect the capitalists againstyou, against the people?

If they were capitalists themselves, then it would stand to reason why theywant to protect the wealth they have stolen, and why they try to keep up,even by force, the system that gives them the privilege of robbing the people.

But the police and the soldiers, the defenders of 'law and order', are not ofthe capitalist class. They are men from the ranks of the people, poor men whofor pay protect the very system that keeps them poor. It is unbelievable, isit not? Yet it is true. It just comes down to this: some of the slaves protecttheir masters in keeping them and the rest of the people in slavery. In thesame way Great Britain, for instance, keeps the Hindoos in India in subjectionby a police force of the natives, of the Hindoos themselves. Or as Belgiumdoes with the black men in the Congo. Or as any government does with asubjugated people. It is the same system. Here is what it amounts to:Capitalism robs and exploits the whole of the people; the laws legalize anduphold this capitalist robbery; the government uses one part of the peopleto aid and protect the capitalists in robbing the whole of the people. Theentire thing is kept up by educating the people to believe that capitalismis right, that the law is just, and that the government must be obeyed. Doyou see through this game now?

Syndicalism: The Modern Menace to Capitalism--------------------------------------------by Emma Goldman---------------

IN view of the fact that the ideas embodied in Syndicalism have been practisedby the workers for the last half century, even if without the background ofsocial consciousness; that in this country five men had to pay with theirlives because they advocated Syndicalist methods as the most effective, inthe struggle of labor against capital; and that, furthermore, Syndicalism hasbeen consciously practised by the workers of France, Italy and Spain since1895, it is rather amusing to witness some people in America and England nowswooping down upon Syndicalism as a perfectly new and never before heard-ofproposition.

It is astonishing how very naïve Americans are, how crude and immature inmatters of international importance. For all his boasted practical aptitude,the average American is the very last to learn of the modern means and tacticsemployed in the great struggles of his day. Always he lags behind in ideas andmethods that the European workers have for years past been applying with greatsuccess.

It may be contended, of course, that this is merely a sign of youth on thepart of the American. And it is indeed beautiful to possess a young mind,fresh to receive and perceive. But unfortunately the American mind seemsnever to grow, to mature and crystallize its views.

Perhaps that is why an American revolutionist can at the same time be apolitician. That is also the reason why leaders of the Industrial Workers ofthe World continue in the Socialist party, which is antagonistic to theprinciples as well as to the activities of the I. W. W. Also why a rigidMarxian may propose that the Anarchists work together with the faction thatbegan its career by a most bitter and malicious persecution of one of thepioneers of Anarchism, Michael Bakunin. In short, to the indefinite, uncertainmind of the American radical the most contradictory ideas and methods arepossible. The result is a sad chaos in the radical movement, a sort ofintellectual hash, which has neither taste nor character.

Just at present Syndicalism is the pastime of a great many Americans,so-called intellectuals. Not that they know anything about it, except thatsome great authorities --- Sorel, Lagardelle, Berth and others --- stand forit: because the American needs the seal of authority, or he would not acceptan idea, no matter how true and valuable it might be.

Our bourgeois magazines are full of dissertations on Syndicalism. One of ourmost conservative colleges has even gone to the extent of publishing a workof one of its students on the subject, which has the approval of a professor.And all this, not because Syndicalism is a force and is being successfullypractised by the workers of Europe, but because --- as I said before --- ithas official authoritative sanction.

As if Syndicalism had been discovered by the philosophy of Bergson or thetheoretic discourses of Sorel and Berth, and had not existed and lived amongthe workers long before these men wrote about it. The feature whichdistinguishes Syndicalism from most philosophies is that it represents therevolutionary philosophy of labor conceived and born in the actual struggleand experience of the workers themselves --- not in universities, colleges,libraries, or in the brain of some scientists. The revolutionary philosophyof labor, that is the true and vital meaning of Syndicalism.

Already as far back as 1848 a large section of the workers realized the utterfutility of political activity as a means of helping them in their economicstruggle. At that time already the demand went forth for direct economicmeasures, as against the useless waste of energy along political lines. Thiswas the case not only in France, but even prior to that in England, whereRobert Owen, the true revolutionary Socialist, propagated similar ideas.

After years of agitation and experiment the idea was incorporated by the firstconvention of the internationale, in 1867, in the resolution that the economicemancipation of the workers must be the principal aim of all revolutionists,to which everything else is to be subordinated.

In fact, it was this determined radical stand which eventually brought aboutthe split in the revolutionary movement of that day, and its division intotwo factions: the one, under Marx and Engels, aiming at political conquest;the other, under Bakunin and the Latin workers, forging ahead alongindustrial and Syndicalist lines. The further development of those two wingsis familiar to every thinking man and woman: the one has graduallycentralized into a huge machine, with the sole purpose of conquering politicalpower within the existing capitalist State; the other is becoming an ever morevital revolutionary factor, dreaded by the enemy as the greatest menace to itsrule.

It was in the year 1900 while a delegate to the Anarchist Congress in Paris,that I first came in contact with Syndicalism in operation. The Anarchistpress had been discussing the subject for years prior to that; therefore weAnarchists knew something about Syndicalism. But those of us who lived inAmerica had to content themselves with the theoretic side of it.

In 1900, however, I saw its effect upon labor in France: the strength, theenthusiasm and hope with which Syndicalism inspired the workers. It was alsomy good fortune to learn of the man who more than anyone else had directedSyndicalism into definite working channels, Fernand Pelloutier. Unfortunately,I could not meet this remarkable young man, as he was at that time alreadyvery ill with cancer. But wherever I went, with whomever I spoke, the loveand devotion for Pelloutier was wonderful, all agreeing that it was he whohad gathered the discontented forces in the French labor movement and imbuedthem with new life and a new purpose, that of Syndicalism.

On my return to America I immediately began to propagate Syndicalist ideas,especially Direct Action and the General Strike. But it was like talking tothe Rocky Mountains --- no understanding, even among the more radicalelements, and complete indifference in labor ranks.

In 1907 I went as a delegate to the Anarchist Congress at Amsterdam and, whilein Paris, met the most active Syndicalists in the Confédération Générale anTravail: Pouget, Delesalle, Monatte, and many others. More than that, I hadthe opportunity to see Syndicalism in daily operation, in its mostconstructive and inspiring forms.

I allude to this, to indicate that my knowledge of Syndicalism does not comefrom Sorel, Lagardelle, or Berth, but from actual contact with and observationof the tremendous work carried on by the workers of Paris within the ranks ofthe Confédération. It would require a volume to explain in detail whatSyndicalism is doing for the French workers. In the American press you readonly of its resistive methods, of strikes and sabotage, of the conflicts oflabor with capital. These are no doubt very important matters, and yet thechief value of Syndicalism lies much deeper. It lies in the constructive andeducational effect upon the life and thought of the masses.

The fundamental difference between Syndicalism and the old trade union methodsis this: while the old trade unions, without exception, move within the wagesystem and capitalism, recognizing the latter as inevitable, Syndicalismrepudiates and condemns present industrial arrangements as unjust andcriminal, and holds out no hope to the worker for lasting results from thissystem.

Of course Syndicalism, like the old trade unions, fights for immediate gains,but it is not stupid enough to pretend that labor can expect humaneconditions from inhuman economic arrangements in society. Thus it merelywrests from the enemy what it can force him to yield; on the whole, however,Syndicalism aims at, and concentrates its energies upon, the completeoverthrow of the wage system. Indeed, Syndicalism goes further: it aims toliberate labor from every institution that has not for its object the freedevelopment of production for the benefit of all humanity. In short, theultimate purpose of Syndicalism is to reconstruct society from its presentcentralized, authoritative and brutal state to one based upon the free,federated grouping of the workers along lines of economic and social liberty.

With this object in view, Syndicalism works in two directions: first, byundermining the existing institutions; secondly, by developing and educatingthe workers and cultivating their spirit of solidarity, to prepare them fora full, free life, when capitalism shall have been abolished.

Syndicalism is, in essence, the economic expression of Anarchism. Thatcircumstance accounts for the presence of so many Anarchists in theSyndicalist movement. Like Anarchism, Syndicalism prepares the workers alongdirect economic lines, as conscious factors in the great struggles of to-day,as well as conscious factors in the task of reconstructing society alongautonomous industrial lines, as against the paralyzing spirit ofcentralization with its bureaucratic machinery of corruption, inherent inall political parties.

Realizing that the diametrically opposed interests of capital and labor cannever be reconciled, Syndicalism must needs repudiate the old rusticated,worn-out methods of trade unionism, and declare for an open war against thecapitalist régime, as well as against every institution which to-day supportsand protects capitalism.

As a logical sequence Syndicalism, in its daily warfare against capitalism,rejects the contract system, because it does not consider labor and capitalequals, hence cannot consent to an agreement which the one has the power tobreak, while the other must submit to without redress.

For similar reasons Syndicalism rejects negotiations in labor disputes,because such a procedure serves only to give the enemy time to prepare hisend of the fight, thus defeating the very object the workers set out toaccomplish. Also, Syndicalism stands for spontaneity, both as a preserver ofthe fighting strength of labor and also because it takes the enemy unawares,hence compels him to a speedy settlement or causes him great loss.

Syndicalism objects to a large union treasury, because money is as corruptingan element in the ranks of labor as it is in those of capitalism. We inAmerica know this to be only too true. If the labor movement in this countrywere not backed by such large funds, it would not be as conservative as itis, nor would the leaders be so readily corrupted. However, the main reasonfor the opposition of Syndicalism to large treasuries consists in the factthat they create class distinctions and jealousies within the ranks of labor,so detrimental to the spirit of solidarity. The worker whose organization hasa large purse considers himself superior to his poorer brother, just as heregards himself better than the man who earns fifty cents less per day.

The chief ethical value of Syndicalism consists in the stress it lays uponthe necessity of labor getting rid of the element of dissension, parasitismand corruption in its ranks. It seeks to cultivate devotion, solidarity andenthusiasm, which are far more essential and vital in the economic strugglethan money.

As I have already stated, Syndicalism has grown out of the disappointment ofthe workers with politics and parliamentary methods. In the course of itsdevelopment Syndicalism has learned to see in the State --- with itsmouthpiece, the representative system --- one of the strongest supports ofcapitalism; just as it has learned that the army and the church are thechief pillars of the State. It is therefore that Syndicalism has turned itsback upon parliamentarism and political machines, and has set its face towardthe economic arena wherein alone gladiator Labor can meet his foe successfully.

Historic experience sustains the Synclicalists in their uncompromisingopposition to parliamentarism. Many had entered political life and,unwilling to be corrupted by the atmosphere, withdrew from office, to devotethemselves to the economic struggle --- Proudhon, the Dutch revolutionistNieuwenhuis, John Most and numerous others. While those who remained in theparliamentary quagmire ended by betraying their trust, without having gainedanything for labor. But it is unnecessary to discuss here political history.Suffice to say that Syndicalists are anti-parlarnentarians as a result ofbitter experience

Equally so has experience determined their anti-military attitude. Time andagain has the army been used to shoot down strikers and to inculcate thesickening idea of patriotism, for the purpose of dividing the workers againstthemselves and helping the masters to the spoils. The inroads that Syndicalistagitation has made into the superstition of patriotism are evident from thedread of the ruling class for the loyalty of the army, and the rigidpersecution of the anti-militarists. Naturailly --- for the ruling classrealizes much better than the workers that when the soldiers will refuse toobey their superiors, the whole system of capitalism will be doomed.

Indeed, why should the workers sacrifice their children that the latter may beused to shoot their own parents? Therefore Syndicalism is not merely logicalin its anti-military agitation; it is most practical and far-reaching,inasmuch as it robs the enemy of his strongest weapon against labor.

Now, as to the methods employed by Syndicalism --- Direct Action, Sabotage,and the General Strike.

DIRECT ACTION.---Conscious individual or collective effort to protest against,or remedy social conditions through the systematic assertion of the economicpower of the workers.

Sabotage has been decried as criminal, even by so-called revolutionarySocialists. Of course, if you believe that property, which excludes theproducer from its use, is justifiable, then sabotage is indeed a crime. Butunless a Socialist continues to be under the influence of our bourgeoismorality --- a morality which enables the few to monopolize the earth at theexpense of the many --- he cannot consistently maintain that capitalistproperty is inviolate. Sabotage undermines this form of private possession.Can it therefore be considered criminal? On the contrary, it is ethical inthe best sense, since it helps society to get rid of its worst foe, the mostdetrimental factor of social life.

Sabotage is mainly concerned with obstructing, by every possible method, theregular process of production, thereby demonstrating the determination of theworkers to give according to what they receive, and no more. For instance,at the time of the French railroad strike of 1910 perishable goods were sentin slow trains, or in an opposite direction from the one intended. Who but themost ordinary philistine will call that a crime? If the railway men themselvesgo hungry, and the "innocent" public has not enough feeling of solidarity toinsist that these men should get enough to live on, the public has forfeitedthe sympathy of the strikers and must take the consequences.

Another form of sabotage consisted, during this strike, in placing heavy boxeson goods marked "Handle with care," cut glass and china and precious wines.From the standpoint of the law this may have been a crime but from thestandpoint of common humanity it was a very sensible thing. The same is trueof disarranging a loom in a weaving mill, or living up to the letter of thelaw with all its red tape, as the Italian railway men did, thereby causingconfusion in the railway service. In other words, sabotage is merely a weaponof defense in the industrial warfare, which is the more effective because ittouches capitalism in its most vital spot, the pocket.

By the General Strike, Syndicalism means a stoppage of work, the cessation oflabor. Nor need such a strike be postponed until all the workers of aparticular place or country are ready for it. As has been pointed out byPelloutier, Pouget, as well as others, and particularly by recent events inEngland, the General Strike may be started by one industry and exert atremendous force. It is as if one man suddenly raised the cry "Stop thethief!" Immediately others will take up the cry, till the air rings with it.The General Strike, initiated by one determined organization, by one industryor by a small, conscious minority among the workers, is the industrial cry of"Stop the thief," which is soon taken up by many other industries, spreadinglike wildfire in a very, short time.

One of the objections of politicians to the General Strike is that the workersalso would suffer for the necessaries of life. In the first place, the workersare past masters in going hungry; secondly, it is certain that a GeneralStrike is surer of prompt settlement than an ordinary strike. Witness thetransport and miner strikes in England: how quickly the lords of State andcapital were forced to make peace! Besides, Syndicalism recognizes the rightof the producers to the things which they have created; namely, the right ofthe workers to help themselves if the strike does not meet with speedysettlement.

When Sorel maintains that the General Strike is an inspiration necessary forthe people to give their life meaning, he is expressing a thought which theAnarchists have never tired of emphasizing. Yet I do not hold with Sorel thatthe General Strike is a "social myth," that may never be realized. I thinkthat the General Strike will become a fact the moment labor understands itsfull value --- its destructive as well as constructive value, as indeed manyworkers all over the world are beginning to realize.

These ideas and methods of Syndicalism some may consider entirely negative,though they are far from it in their effect upon society to-day. ButSyndicalism has also a directly positive aspect. In fact, much more timeand effort is being devoted to that phase than to the others. Various formsof Syndicalist activity are designed to prepare the workers, even withinpresent social and industrial conditions, for the life of a new and bettersociety. To that end the masses are trained in the spirit of mutual aid andbrotherhood, their initiative and self-reliance developed, and an esprit decorps maintained whose very soul is solidarity of purpose and the communityof interests of the international proletariat.

Chief among these activities are the mutualitées, or mutual aid societies,established by the French Syndicalists. Their object is, foremost, to securework for unemployed members, and to further that spirit of mutual assistancewhich rests upon the consciousness of labor's identity of intereststhroughout the world.

In his "The Labor Movement in France," Mr. L. Levine states that during theyear 1902 over 74,000 workers, out of a total of 99,000 applicants, wereprovided with work by these societies, without being compelled to submit tothe extortion of the employment bureau sharks.

These latter are a source of the deepest degradation, as well as of mostshameless exploitation, of the worker. Especially does it hold true ofAmerica, where the employment agencies are in many cases also maskeddetective agencies, supplying workers in need of employment to strike regions,under false promises of steady, remunerative employment.

The French Confédération had long realized the vicious rôle of employmentagencies as leeches upon the jobless worker and nurseries of scabbery. By thethreat of a General Strike the French Syndicalists forced the government toabolish the employment bureau sharks, and the workers' own mutualitées havealmost entirely superseded them, to the great economic and moral advantage oflabor.

Besides the mutualitées, the French Syndicalists have established otheractivities tending to weld labor in closer bonds of solidarity and mutualaid. Among these are the efforts to assist workingmen journeying from placeto place. The practical as well as ethical value of such assistance isinestimable. It serves to instill the spirit of fellowship and gives a senseof security in the feeling of oneness with the large family of labor. This isone of the vital effects of the Syndicalist spirit in France and other Latincountries. What a tremendous need there is for just such efforts in thiscountry! Can anyone doubt the significance of the consciousness of workingmencoming from Chicago, for instance, to New York, sure to find there amongtheir comrades welcome lodging and food until they have secured employment?This form of activity is entirely foreign to the labor bodies of this country,and as a result the traveling workman in search of a job --- the "blanketstiff" --- is constantly at the mercy of the constable and policeman, a victimof the vagrancy laws, and the unfortunate material whence is recruited,through stress of necessity, the army of scabdom.

I have repeatedly witnessed, while at the headquarters of the Confédération,the cases of workingmen who came with their union cards from various parts ofFrance, and even from other countries of Europe, and were supplied with mealsand lodging, and encouraged by every evidence of brotherly spirit, and madeto feel at home by their fellow workers of the Confédération. It is due, to agreat extent, to these activities of the Synclicalists that the Frenchgovernment is forced to employ the army for strikebreaking, because fewworkers are willing to lend themselves for such service, thanks to theefforts and tactics of Syndicalism.

No less in importance than the mutual aid activities of the Syndicalists isthe cooperation established by them between the city, end the country, thefactory worker and the peasant or farmer, the latter providing the workerswith food supplies during strikes, or taking care of the strikers' children.This form of practical solidarity has for the first time been tried in thiscountry during the Lawrence strike, with inspiring results.

And all these Syndicalist activities are permeated with the spirit ofeducational work, carried on systematically by evening classes on all vitalsubjects treated from an unbiased, libertarian standpoint --- not theadulterated "knowledge" with which the minds are stuffed in our publicschools. The scope of the education is tru

Sick of this life,Not that you'd care. I'm not the only one with whom these feelings I share..Nobody understands, quite why we're here, We're searchin' for answers that never appear..But maybe if I looked real hard I'd I'd see you're tryin' too to understand this life that we're all going through..(Then when she said she was gonna like wreck my car... I didn't know what to do)